That Rainy, October Night
by LadyCavil
Summary: A missing scene from my fic Porthos' Car. The night Porthos and Aramis met.


The telephone booth offers no shelter from the cold rain which runs down the many strands of his hair and drips inside his collar, running down his back yet no longer startling him as it had moments before. Truth be told, it's not even a booth. It's one of those units with a shell just large enough to offer modest protection for the phone and little else. At the very least his cold, shaking hands found some brief respite from the precipitation there, but now he must move on, move on or be found. So he wanders on.

The pattering of rain and the squishing of his shoes on the sidewalk are soon accompanied by sniffling no thanks to the chilling, late October air. Still he shuffles on, desperate to find shelter, and the few nearby street lights come to yellowy life around him. Several blocks from the payphone, he thinks he spies a car, swipes the thick, soaked hair from his eyes just to make sure. The world's growing hazy, so he's got one shot at convincing the car's owner to aid him…if there's actually someone around. This is far from the best plan he's ever made.

He meanders over to the vehicle and considers flashing his badge, but here, on the east side of town, identifying himself as a member of law enforcement can be more damaging than helpful. Instead he settles for knocking on the passenger-side window. He honestly has no idea what comes out of his mouth then. My brain, he thinks, is short-circuiting. Apparently it doesn't matter because the man leans across the seat to push the door open for him.

Grateful for the chance to sit, his body finds enough energy to lower himself into the vehicle. The knowledge that somehow this idiotic scheme is working out thus far causes his face to display what he hopes is a smile loaded with gratitude.

"Name's Aramis," he manages to state, hand outstretched in greeting despite the fact that a handshake can only delay his escape from this part of town.

"Porthos," his savior responds before producing a towel from…somewhere. He's too tired to keep track of everything now.

Porthos offers a calm, reassuring smile. The man before him is nothing short of a mess and a walking puddle. With the little streetlight invading Nina's front seats, Porthos can see the ragged pattern of the man's breathing and the tremors sporadically claiming control of him. Aramis tips his head back against the headrest, unintentionally giving Porthos a good look at his face now that his hair no longer conceals his countenance. He's hardly more than a kid, Porthos decides, can't be more than twenty years old.

He starts the car and turns the heat as high as possible before aiming every air vent he can reach at the young man beside him. That's when he notices his passenger's eyes are unfocused even in the brief flashes of lamplight illuminating the car's interior when Porthos gets them headed for the nearest river crossing. He doesn't know where the kid lives nor where he needs to go in the aftermath of whatever it is that happened to him.

"Aramis, you gotta help me out here." He lightly places his right hand on the young man's left wrist in the hope of keeping him awake and aware, but Porthos quickly withdraws when the contact elicits a hiss and a flinch from his passenger. "North or west side, kid?"

" 'm not a kid," Aramis grumbles. " 'm twen'y three."

Porthos lets the issue go, his attention drawn by the SUV traveling parallel to them on the next street over to his left. Glancing to his right, he sees Aramis slouched in the passenger seat, although his posture remains defensive despite the exhaustion surrounding him like a cloud.

"Why were you on this side of town?" From the corner of his eye he continues to track their shadowy stalker, careful to remain facing forward to keep from alerting the other vehicle of both his knowledge of its presence as well as the existence of his passenger.

"Business."

"Business," Porthos echoes with minimal mouth movement. "You don't seem the east-side business type."

" 's for a friend."

"Your friend happen to be a detective? Maybe the Police Commissioner? These guys normally don't tail low-end buyers, so I'm guessing you're an informant or a narc. Police station on the north or west side?"

Aramis's eyes fly open, and his attempt to turn in his seat is stopped by Porthos's arm across his chest and pinning him against the seat.

"If they haven't made a move yet, I'm guessing they're not sure you're in here, so stay back and down. Now are you a cop or aren't you?"

"I am." It's a whisper; Porthos thinks there's some amount of fear in the confession, as though the kid seriously believes he's about to be handed over to his pursuers. "West side," soon follows after, so Porthos proceeds accordingly.

One of the bridges to the west side appears in the distance, yet neither man relaxes at the sight of it. The SUV to their left is joined by one behind them, and each is creeping ever closer. The older man assumes his passenger has no back up in the area else he'd have no need of Porthos's services.

"You better hang on, kid," he warns before increasing his foot's pressure on the gas pedal. The acceleration is subtle at first, but their pursuers continue to close in.

"Getting obvious, aren't you?" Aramis is pressed against the seat, one hand holding himself steady while the other slowly fastens his seat belt.

"I know what I'm doing," Porthos informs the young man as they speed through two consecutive red lights and disregard the lowering traffic arm before the bridge. Aramis grips the armrest and door handle with every ounce of strength he possesses. His eyes keep wandering to the mirrors reflecting the SUVs as they momentarily leave the ground while passing over the rising bridge.

It isn't until Aramis realizes they're flying through town at twice the legal speed that his tired mind comprehends Porthos's plan. Such blatant disregard for the law is sure to attract the attention of nearby law enforcement, and the ensuing pursuit would, God willing, end in the disappearance or arrest of the individuals chasing Porthos and Aramis from the east side. How fortunate, he thinks, that the streets appear deserted, devoid of potential victims.

The sudden flashing blue and red lights of an otherwise unmarked police cruiser are painfully bright as the officer pulls a U-turn to give chase. Aramis shields his eyes behind his hand while Porthos ponders for the first time whether or not he'll lose his license for driving as he is. Seconds later a second police vehicle joins the first, yet their east-end stalkers fail to turn and run. Rather, they continue their hunt with greater enthusiasm, opening fire on the officers and closing in on Porthos and Aramis.

"Stop the car," Aramis suggests.

Porthos glances at the young man, failing to comprehend the reason behind such a plan. "Why would I stop the car?"

"Two officers in pursuit and back-up is likely on the way. These idiots can either do what they came to do or run, and there's no guaranteed success either way." Aramis pauses while Porthos makes a sudden right turn in an attempt to dodge gun fire. "If we go much further we'll be dragging this through a residential area."

So Porthos forces the brake pedal to the floor so fast that the SUVs swerve wildly to avoid crashing. "What now?" Behind them the volley of exchanged gun fire escalates in intensity, a stray bullet scratching Porthos's car when the police return fire. "Sorry, Nina," he mutters.

"Don't suppose you have a gun?"

"Nope."

In the passenger seat Aramis is still leaned forward from the force of the vehicle's deceleration, and he rests against the locked seat belt. "Can't stay here," he decides after a split second of stillness. Moving faster than Porthos witnessed thus far, Aramis flings off his seat belt, throws open the car door, and scrambles for cover behind the nearest building corner.

Before Porthos can even unbuckle to follow after, his window shatters inward, shards of glass cutting his face and arms while his attacker slams Porthos forward into the steering wheel. Furious, Porthos manages to grasp the knife he keeps tucked beneath his seat. He uses the momentum carrying himself back off of the steering wheel as his opportunity to drive the knife into any accessible area of the low life damaging his car. The blade finds his assailant's upper arm, and the man recoils just enough for Porthos to shove his door open with more than enough force to throw the intruder onto the glistening street. Much as Porthos would love to pound the fool into the pavement, there's an idiotic twenty-three-year-old he's sure needs to be looked after.

He spins to find the corner Aramis took shelter behind earlier but finds it deserted with the young officer nowhere in sight. It's the sound of a weapon discharging followed by a howl of pain that directs him beyond the corner and down an alley. There Porthos finds Aramis at the mercy of not one but two men roughly the same size as a bear. The growing stain on the kid's right thigh tells Porthos everything he needs to know about the shot, and he's running forward before he can reconsider what he's doing. He roars, the sound causing one of the men to turn while the other closes his massive hands around the young man's throat.

Aramis's gasping becomes the soundtrack to Porthos's charge. Several shots are fired, but Porthos does not slow his advance. Just before Porthos engages in hand-to-hand combat with the now grinning man (overconfident giant that he is finds no threat in Porthos's approach), he sees the second man knock Aramis's head against the pavement to end the young man's struggling. Whether red fills his vision after that because of the bleeding wound around his left eye or because of his desperate rage, Porthos will never be entirely sure. He fights like a wild animal, eventually wondering when he dropped his knife and his opponent discarded his gun. After several blows are exchanged, Porthos uses his speed to duck under the swinging arm of his foe and use the man's momentum to slam him into the nearest wall. A follow through of two quick blows to the back of the bear-man's head sends the brute into a state of unconsciousness, and Porthos whips around to find Aramis once more.

Out of the corner of his eye he spies an officer at the end of the alley and closing in with gun raised, but in that instant Porthos is certain the policeman will never get there in time. There's not a second to waste with attempting to diffuse the situation. Aramis's face is red, and Porthos knows the kid's been without oxygen for too long for him to hesitate. So he moves. Porthos hurls himself at the man choking the life out of the injured officer, tackles him to the ground and wrestles to pin the flailing limbs beneath their combined weight until the authorities can take the brute into custody.

Aramis's gasping and gagging echo around the alley's end, but the ringing in his ears drowns out his frantic attempts to breathe. His mind struggles to catalog every sensory alarm wailing from head to toe. When a hand rests on his chest, he flinches, tries to roll away and escape the renewed attack that must be coming. _I have to get home to Mercedes. I'm so close. I have to make it home._ That mantra might have carried him all the way there if not for the flaring of half a dozen pains when he tries to move. He falls still, though, when a face familiar even the darkness of the alley swims in his field of vision. Athos's mouth moves, but Aramis fails to comprehend whatever he says. All at once, it's too much for Aramis's mind and body to keep up with, and his eyes slip shut.

There's a grim sort of finality in the closing of Aramis's eyes that leaves Athos swallowing hard in denial. His best friend and work-partner is not dead; his rapid pulse and irregular breathing testify as much. But the moment is no easier because of those signs nor the knowledge that the paramedics are nearly there. Athos sees the evidence of his friend's exhaustion, the tell-tale marks of insufficient diet. Had this altercation been avoided somehow, Aramis would still require time to recover from his mission, a mission which, by the looks of it, may not have been successful.

"How is he?" Athos's attention is drawn to his right by the man with the bleeding face and arms, the one who saved Aramis.

"Alive. Thank you….."

"Porthos."

"Thank you, Porthos." Athos watches the two hulking perpetrators as they're taken into custody and escorted back to the cruisers. "I assume I also have you to thank for getting him out of the east side so quickly."

Porthos ducks his head in a mix of humility and embarrassment, for several of the officers nearby echo Athos's thanks in their own way.

"Who is he?" Porthos asks, having glimpsed their protectiveness and fondness of Aramis, and with the paramedics now hurrying towards them, he assumes he'll never see the kid again.

"My partner." Athos watches Porthos glance around, seeing the night once more through the lens of this new information. "The Commissioner's son," he adds just to watch Porthos's expression change before the paramedics are between them and the rain falls with renewed intensity.

 **AN:** I'm not sure when I'll update this again (two jobs and school takes up a looooooooooooot of time), but I do intend to. If you haven't noticed already, I'm rearranging and completely changing canon at will, so be prepared for that. Also, if you're absolutely confused about what you just read, I'll be glad to answer any questions you have. :)


End file.
